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Mortal Kombat retains many hidden mysteries and the power to astonish, more than 30 years after its initial debut in arcades. This latest compilation covering the series' initial period, comprising four arcade games, various home ports, and related titles, goes beyond simply a faithfully reproduced series of classics along with lesser-known entries — it additionally serves as a rich documentary about the development of the legendary series.

Even as a lifelong devotee of the franchise who has carefully followed its origins and transformation, there was plenty new for me to understand and value about the series.

What Defines the Historical Compilation

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like previous classic compilations from the development team Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, section playable historical record. The collection includes simulated releases of the first arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, along with home system and portable adaptations of several of these titles. The collection even includes the brand's experiments at spin-off titles, like action-oriented titles Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' least successful installments.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a highlight reel anthology, but an examination of the franchise's initial era, when the development team Midway and series co-creators Ed Boon and John Tobias were discovering methods to develop a battle series, created from video recordings of live performers, on the fly. Viewing the historical footage — which includes vintage recordings, recent conversations, and reproductions of classic advertisements, comics, and including internal communications — it's astonishing to observe how Mortal Kombat went from humble beginnings to a international craze. It's truly remarkable to see a group of pioneering developers, developing without clear direction or supervision, direct their entertainment passions into establishing an enduring gaming brand.

Historical Section

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of Mortal Kombat and the founders' vocational paths at the currently closed Midway. It then goes on to show how the very same individuals reckoned with how to consistently surpass their achievements, experiencing considerable stress to duplicate their success. It represents an intriguing historical record made from analog films and traditional photos and manual drawings, which showcase the DIY nature of Mortal Kombat's development and how personal recommendations helped disseminate its secrets and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's an eminently watchable set of brief historical films that covers video games, graphic novels, movies and even the silly live-action tour. The compilation also contains some never-implemented techniques and game character images among its archived development assets.

Playable Component

Distributed throughout the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are prompts to play the original releases. At certain intervals, viewers can hop into a game of Mortal Kombat or a console adaptation to rediscover its combat system and graphics, emulated nearly perfectly on contemporary systems.

I spent the bulk of my time experiencing the original arcade titles, specifically Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here remain enjoyable, especially in one-on-one local play. Yet competing with the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a demonstration of how basic and unfair the development approached in early Mortal Kombat games. Computer-directed fighters obviously use unfair advantages or are otherwise dumb as rocks. Without having a human opponent — online play is available in the majority of included games, but somewhat limited in options — the experience will be incomplete.

Technical Presentation

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the anthology, a blend of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are accurately emulated, though I detected a couple minor issues — mainly control latency and intermittent errors, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are primarily displayed authentically, the creators has added several intelligent quality-of-life features and display customization choices. As an illustration, users can elect to show each character's special moves on-screen and choose to enable unlimited duration to perform a Fatality. Also included are choices for unlocking secret characters, without having to perform complicated methods to access them.

Visually, the games can be enjoyed with multiple visual enhancements and presentation styles. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection includes remarkably accurate effects that reproduce the CRT monitors of arcades or domestic TVs, or the monochrome green display of a Nintendo handheld. A particularly nice touch is the option to have gaming hall-style borders surrounding the screen, with the MK game of your choice faithfully and subtly duplicating against the faux black plastic borders. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Additional Features

The collection includes numerous appreciated elements beyond the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, containing a soundtrack mode that lets you revisit the music from multiple combat titles excluding the sounds of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. Also present are character profiles that feature histories and the various bits of lore presented by the demo sequences of coin-op titles and endings.

Historical Preservation

One of the biggest highlights for dedicated series enthusiasts is the ability to access a example of historically missing material in the guise of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This version of the game, a moderately improved edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an initial venture by the company at head-to-head network battles in gaming halls. The Wavenet Edition of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but featured the capability to battle network competitors and included some minor glitch repairs and refinements. However, this network version failed to achieve popularity, in part